Everyone loves a freshly hatched word name or a fledgling celebrity baby name, and many of us appreciate names that stem from flowers, trees, and animals. But for the true biophile, the bug-sketching natural philosopher or the biochemistry disciple who chops thale cress in the lab? Here are some worthy tribute names for the lovers of the life sciences.

Girls:

Rosalind (RosalindElsieFranklin): RosalindFranklin was an X-ray crystallographer and unsung hero of molecular biology, and her diffraction patterns gave competitor-colleagues JamesWatson and Francis Crick crucial insight on the three-dimensionalstructure of DNA. Her death at age 37 disqualified her for the 1962 Nobel Prize for Medicine. The meaning of Rosalind is as prepossessing as Dr. Franklin’s acclaimed x-ray photographs—“pretty rose”.

Jane (ValerieJaneMorris Goodall): Jane is a true classic, not only in the English-speaking world of names but also in conservation biology. Goodall’s observations on chimpanzee behavior have done much to promote empathy toward animals. The name of the childhood toy chimpanzee that inspired her enthusiasm for animals was Jubilee, and later, one of her favorite female chimps she dubbed Gremlin. Gremlin may not be the next great classic for a baby girl, but other renowned conservationists with classic names will inspire: HelenBeatrixPotter and RachelCarson.

In a recent issue of PCWorldmagazine, JRRaphael wrote an interesting and amusing article highlighting ten tech-inspired baby names. He was kind enough to give us permission to use some of his examples and add more of our own—names that might provide some extra inspiration to some techie parents out there without sounding as weird as, say, AudioScience. So no, we’re not suggesting dot.com or Tweet or even Apple.

Conveniently for us, many computer programming languages were given people names, including those in this list of techie baby names with no ID following the name.

GIRLS

Ada—computer programming language, probably named in honor of Ada Lovelace, (born Augusta Ada, daughter of LordByron), considered to be the first programmer.

To commemorate this week’s International Women’s Day (we’re only a day late), we thought that this time we’d look not at creative artists or political figures, but at accomplished female scientists and mathematicians. These range in time from the 4th century BC to the recent past, all of them women who had to overcome the cultural biases against females in their fields–all inspirational namesakes. Brainy names for brainy babies!

And in the usual nameberry fashion, we’re not aiming to be comprehensive, but focusing as much on noteworthy names as on notable achievements. So apologies to the many Marys, andMaries who don’t appear below..

ADA Lovelace, aka AUGUSTAAdaByron – daughter of the poet, a mathematician who contributed to research that led to the modern computer.

ALESSANDRA Giliani –14th century Italian anatomist, reputedly the first person to use the injection of colored fluids to trace blood vessels.

AMALIEEmmy Noether – (known as EMMY) – did work relating to the general theory of relativity and ring theory.

ARTEMISIA, Queen of Caria (c. 300 BC), a botanist and medical researcher; the plant genis Artemisia is named for her.

CECILIAPayne-Gaposchkin– as a graduate student in 1925, she established one of the fundamental theories of astrophysics, that stars were made up of hydrogen and helium.

DOROTHEA Klumpke was an internationally known astronomer who studied meteorites and broke several gender barriers.

ELENALUCREZIA Cornaro Piscopia –a 17th century Venetian mathematician, the first woman to earn a PhD.

ELSABeata Bunge – Well known early Swedish botanist who wrote on the nature of vine grapes.

ÉMILIE du Châtenet – Translated Newton’s Principia into French and deduced the conservation of energy.

GERTYTheresaCori (shown) was awarded a 1947 Nobel Laureate for her medical research, which she shared with her husband.